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Topic: Bridal Shower: Could You Fix This? (Read 3528 times)

I loathe bad manners. That said, understand that I fully know that all guest invited to a bridal shower must be invited to the wedding to avoid the appearance of "fishing for gifts."

My mother's best friend, "Cathy," offered to throw me a bridal shower a couple of months before my wedding. I happily accepted, but from Day 1 informed my mother and she that my fiance and I were having a small wedding, with no more than 60- 70 people. We were very firm about this fact, particularly since my wedding was almost completely planned by the time the shower came around. We had a budget, venue, catering, flowers, everything already arranged for 60-70 guests. I provided Cathy with my guest list so she could invite all those invited to the wedding.

To Cathy and my mother's credit, the shower was beautiful. However, it was full of people I HAD NEVER MET. When I say full, I mean that there were 150 people in attendance, only 20 of whom I had invited to the wedding. I was horrified and terribly uncomfortable accepting gifts from people I had never seen before.

To make matters worse, many of these people expected to be invited to the wedding, mainly those who were my mother's and Cathy's friends, and some even asked why they had not received their wedding invitation! I could only sheepishly respond that we were having a very small wedding, and everyone there I'm sure figured that I was "fishing for gifts." I discussed this with Cathy and my mother, who both assured me that there was no such rule of etiquette that dictated that shower guests be invited to the wedding. Ugh.

So, I come off looking like the rudest person, but understand that there was no way I could turn my 70 person wedding into a 200 person affair!

Moral of the story: sometimes the appearance of rudeness is thrust upon the unwitting bride-to-be, so cut them some slack!

BridalShowers1107-06

Okay, so this obviously a very embarrassing event, and it is one the bride tried to avoid. I wonder if she could have said something about this in her thank you notes? It would probably be rude to cast the fault onto the host and her mom, but it really was their fault . . . Also, as a potential gift giver, I would probably feel better knowing that at least it wasn't the intention of the recipient to receive all these gifts from people who were not even invited to the wedding.

I loathe bad manners. That said, understand that I fully know that all guest invited to a bridal shower must be invited to the wedding to avoid the appearance of "fishing for gifts."

My mother's best friend, "Cathy," offered to throw me a bridal shower a couple of months before my wedding. I happily accepted, but from Day 1 informed my mother and she that my fiance and I were having a small wedding, with no more than 60- 70 people. We were very firm about this fact, particularly since my wedding was almost completely planned by the time the shower came around. We had a budget, venue, catering, flowers, everything already arranged for 60-70 guests. I provided Cathy with my guest list so she could invite all those invited to the wedding.

Moral of the story: sometimes the appearance of rudeness is thrust upon the unwitting bride-to-be, so cut them some slack!

BridalShowers1107-06

I think she insists that the hostess and her mother make the apologies.

she can also "fix" it by having some other sort of gathering (lasagne in a church fellowship hall?) later and inviting these people--actually, her MOTHER and CATHY can do this.

If it were one or two people, she could invite them to dinner at their home very shortly after the wedding--BEFORE inviting her mother, actually. But with this many people, and with people she had never eve met . . .

Bad mom! Bad Cathy!

I wanted to make 2 points, though--see the bolded.It's not just that you only invite also-on-the-wedding-list people to avoid the *appearance* of a gift grab. It's to avoid putting people in an awkward spot.

And normally, you do not invite ALL the [female] wedding guests to the shower. Showers are intended to be for "the smaller group of women who are particularly extra interested in the bride." Perhaps for a very small wedding, you might end up with the same exact names on the list, and this bride *did* have a small wedding.

But I just wanted to make that point.

Even w/ my ILs' family, and their "70-people plus" showers, the shower is always smaller than the actual [female half of the] wedding.

Also, a bride stuck in this situation could perhaps say to people who wondered about their wedding invitations, in a puzzled way. "I'm not sure. Cathy was in charge of the guest list for the shower--I think you'll need to ask her why you were invited today. Though I am glad of a chance to meet you!"

I don't think you can really fix it, without blatantly saying "I'm so sorry the hosts decided to invite random people without my permission, but if you're gonna blame anyone, blame them!"

What I would do, is make a point of writing something in the thank you notes, along the lines of "It was such a pleasant surprise to see you at the shower!" Make it very positive, but also imply that you weren't involved in the guest list.